IMMIGRATION

Today, Ned's going to tackle the third rail of American politics: immigration.
He recalls more than twenty years ago being surprised, during a routine check of faculty at Departments of Geography around the country, at how many persons of Indian descent were occupying faculty positions. He fleetingly wondered how many American geographers were looking for work as a result of these department hiring foreigners.
Then he had the opportunity to do a year overseas at a university in Britain and remarked how few Americans there were on the faculty. He was told that EU rules required that precedence be given to citizens of EU countries, so Ned felt very fortunate to be able to spend the year there. Now, Ned wasn't flattered to think that he was the most qualified candidate in the world for that position, even though that was essentially what the university had to certify to get Ned hired. No, Ned got the position because of a faculty contact, who was able to pull strings and get Ned the position, However, when Ned re-applied, he was told that the EU had tightened "up" requirements and they had to offer the job to an EU resident. So Ned was exiled back to the States.
In this country, however, it seems that departments like to have foreigners on their faculty, which all in all strikes Ned as a good policy, except for the Americans who lose their jobs as a result.
Now this is just one tiny facet of the immigration story. To most, the problem with immigration seems to be illegal immigration, and that apparently was what the controversial new Arizona law was designed to address. It seems that most Americans support Arizona's law. In fact, poll after poll seems to suggest Americans want a clampdown on both illegal AND legal immigration. But Ned is skeptical of polls as an earlier post describes.
So what to do about immigration?
Some on the left seem to support unlimited immigration to make up for crimes committed by former US administrations, in places like El Salvador and Nicaragua, not to mention Vietnam. Ned is sympathetic to this position, but feels a better way to do this would be to offer reparations to the affected countries. Bringing foreigners to this country often induces them to a culture shock akin to being struck by lightning. Recall the plight of the Hmong, for example, a group of tribespeople induced to aid the CIA during the Vietnam war. After we lost, we opted to bring many of the Hmomg out, too. The only problem was these folks didn't have a written language and their social norms were wildly different from those in Western countries. Now, Hmong communities in the US are beset by gangs, as the young try to cope with a toxic, alien culture. Moreover, the Hmong apparently believe in having many children, which puts heavy burdens on affected local governments.
Some on the right seem to support immigration to provide an unending supply of desperate labor, perhaps hoping to destroy what is left of the labor movement in this country in the process. Others say they support bringing the "best minds" to America. How this can be expected to improve conditions in the home countries is problematic, but this doesn't seem to worry them.
Countries like India suffer from a lack of medical care even as Indian doctors flood into the US.
Ned supports immigration up to the level at which American citizens leave this country, which is about 200,000 a year. And he doesn't care what their race, ethnicity, sexual preference or age is, as long as they can contribute materially to the well-being of people in this country.
As to those here illegally? Ned wonders what part of "illegal" is hard to understand. One major stumbling block to fixing the problem is the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which basically guarantees citizenship to anyone born under the "jurisdiction" of the US. Well meaning in its concept, it has become a powerful magnet to persons coming here illegally, to have children that will then be US citizens and will qualify for all sorts of benefits, even as Americans and legal immigrants exhaust their unemployment benefits and frequent soup kitchens.
We need to repeal or modify this Amendment to start to fix immigration.